


「灰燼」ash and cinders

by UnholyPinecone



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/M, Loss of Virginity, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 01:11:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12996582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnholyPinecone/pseuds/UnholyPinecone
Summary: She reaches out to him, to her god, with a hand bandaged in white linen.“Can you make me beautiful?”





	1. Act I. Child.

Half of her is wrapped in bandages, clean and white, an eye almost completely covered by the linen.

“You’re the one they call the Golden Demon.”

He looks at her, Whisper still smoking in his hand. His newest creation (a Noxian soldier which wandered too far) on his knees, hands upward, reaching for the skies. Reaching for greatness.

The child reaches for him with a bandaged hand, the linen pale and untainted with blood.

“Can you make me beautiful?”

And in that hand, he sees a glint of silver on white, one silver coin. All of what she has, and she offers it to him, offers all her prayers to him.

“Please, maestro, can you make me beautiful?”

He winces, the wound at his side finally making itself known. Red dripping down his leg, staining the Earth. The work of his newest creation. Just as he left his mark on it, it left its mark on him.

“My my,” He laughs, “I’ve outdone myself this time.”

He falls, and she reaches out for her god.

* * *

The next time he wakes, his wound is completely healed, and he finds himself in a decrepit shack barely held together by mold. The cot is clean enough, but the rot of wood surrounds him, and he wonders what ugliness lives here.

The child is asleep at his bedside. There’s a bowl of cold rice soup, the food left out in the open for so long there is a film on the top. No matter. He takes the bowl, and drinks from it. 

She wakes at the sudden movement, though he’s taken care to be silent. A light sleeper.

“You’re awake!” She looks at him, and he could see half of a smile.

He wonders if this is a trap, and the authorities are just outside. Waiting to clasp him in irons, to put him behind bars, and to hang him on a lucky day. He hates hanging - what an ugly death that is.

But he hears no footsteps outside. Common guards are not well-trained in stealth.

“Where are your parents, child?” He asks.

At this, her smile falls, “They never wanted me. My mother - she said - I am cursed, ugly.”

His hand reaches for her face, and she freezes, but does not move when he removes the bandages.

He does not gasp in horror, as he stared at the burns made by the cursed black flames of Fiendfyre. Scorched to the bone, the dark magics writhing underneath the skin. It will never fade.

_ Symmetry is boring, _ he thought to himself.

“And your father?”

“They say he was a demon. They say he - did terrible things to my mother - and they say that was why I was born with the curse.”

He hums in thought, fingers trailing over scars, the skin hot to the touch, “and just who healed you?”

Trembling, she raised her hand to her face, and he feels magic - light and warmth. It seeps into her skin, healing ruined tissue and for a moment, the Fiendfyre is curbed.

Until she lets go of her hand, and the flames roars back to life. She winces as they damage freshly healed tissue.

“Can you make me beautiful, maestro?”

He briefly considers it. And of course he could - he could make the world beautiful if he had it his way. 

“No,” He rises from his cot, and stands. He stretches, bones cracking as he does so. The child is talented enough - he could feel no pain. In fact, he feels freshly rejuvenated.

“Please - I will pay! I have money!”

He scoffs, the Golden Demon looks at his newest potential client. “You think I care for that bit of coin?”

“P-Please, it’s all I have - I will give you anything,” He can see the threat of tears now, before she looks down, “Please, maestro. I just want to be beautiful.”

His hand forces her chin to look up at him, and he studies her face. Without the scars, the Fiendfyre, she could have been an Ionian beauty in her own right, in time. Long lashes, dark eyes, dark hair, fair skin.

“Then pay with your service,” He says, holding her gaze, “Pay with your art.”

She looks at him, confused - no, not confused - innocent.

“Pay with your talents,” He says, “The gods have given me a gift today. They have given me an apprentice, to learn my arts.”

And he sees hope flood her eyes, and he thinks it is beautiful.

“And if I do this - you will make me beautiful?”

“When the time is right,” He promises, “I will make you beautiful, I will make you perfect. I will make you into a masterpiece.”

“Yes, master!”

And as she kneels before him, performing the rites of respect eight times, he is already thinking of all the uses he’s going to have for her.


	2. Act II. Apprentice.

The man was whimpering in pain, tears and snot streaking down his face. Jhin hums as makes another cut, and sticks the branch into the wound.

By now, Hui is already finished. The wound closing around, skin fusing with bark, before she moves on to the next. The trick is to stick the wood in deep enough, so the healed flesh would not push it out.

“Please, please, just kill me - please -”

“Shhh,” Jhin shushes the man, even as Hui’s laughter echoes in the empty clearing of the forest, the snow spotted with red blossoms, “Silence during the performance.”

“You will be beautiful!” The three-quarter mask she wears is an elegant thing only revealing the curl of a corner of her mouth, the pale wood marked by ebony flames.

The man screams as Jhin’s knife etches into him for the forty-fourth time, before twisting the branch into the newly opened hole.

Hui heals the wound enough so that the branch will remain, and the man sobs. “Wh-what have you done...What have you done?”

The bare branches of winter stuck in his pale, naked body, arranged like wings, his lips blue with the cold.

Jhin begins to assemble Whisper, so that a bullet of a higher caliber may be shot.

“Places, everyone, places!”

“Yes, Master,” and Hui takes out a handkerchief, wiping the man’s face clean before she takes the man by the shoulder, a bandaged hand steadying him at the center of his back, between the wings, “Please do not move, mister. This is just the finishing touch.”

The winged angel is sobbing now, “Please - I’ll give you anything- I have money - please -”

Whisper blows a hole in the center of his chest, blood and pieces of flesh splattering Hui’s mask. Her left hand blown off, the Fiendfyre roars to life, reducing the fallen appendage to ash. The man falls.

Hui holds her stump close to her, the flow of healing magic already starting to mend the wound, fingers already growing back. “You were so rough, Master. I thought you were going to blow my entire arm off.”

“If you were in position, it should have only been a finger.” Jhin begins to take Whisper apart, holstering the small pistol.

As soon as the healing magics leaves the arm, the dark cursed tendrils of Fiendfyre swarms to the freshly healed skin and flesh, and Hui hisses in pain.

She stumbles over to him, and he takes out the roll of bandages, wrapping her wrist and hand once more in linen, the motion practiced over the years.

Once finished, the two gaze upon their artwork. It is a fallen angel, its wings burned to nothing but shades of their former self, lying prostrate in the snow.

“He’s beautiful, Master.”

“Yes, of course, Hui. Such is my art.”

“Will I be so beautiful?”

Jhin looks at his apprentice. Over the years, she’s grown from an innocent child to a young woman, a flower in bloom. It must be plucked before it wilts.

_ But not yet _ . He tells himself.

“Be patient, Hui,” He tells her, “It is not time yet.”

“But when  _ will _ it be time, Master?”

“You will be my masterpiece,” His hand reaches for her face, bloodstained gloves trailing over lips, “I must wait...Until a composition is...”

She smiles, lips stained rouge.

“ _ Perfect. _ ”

* * *

They stumble into the attic, and he could feel her ripping apart his clothes to get at the wound.

There are of course, constrictions to her magics. The wound must not be fatal, and she must remain calm while she performs.

She is not quite so calm now.

“Master. Please -” The magic stutters, and he growls in pain like a wounded animal. His wounds have never been this deep before, and she could still hear the footsteps of the guards, forty in number, too much for them to take.

“Sh, Hui, focus now,” He whispers, gripping her shaking hand, “You must be calm, no?”

“I-I can’t- I don’t- I don’t know what to do-” a tear streaks down her face, and he wipes it away.

“Sh, focus on my voice,” His voice is soft. With a mild irritance, he knows that he must calm her for her to be useful, “Focus, Hui.”

“I-I-”

“Focus on my voice. You can do this - how many times have you stitched me together? Ever since that day -”

“Forty-three times, Master,” She says, her voice trembling, and he could almost hear the faint hum of the Lamb, and he thinks ‘ _ Not today. _ ’

“This will be the forty-fourth then,” He says, and he could feel the hum of the magics once more, “and we will not die here. Not today.”

The light is bright, before the door downstairs is kicked down, the clattering of wood breaking her concentration. His wound rips open, blood staining her lips - his blood. He grunts in pain.

“Sh, focus.” His voice is quiet now, soft and pianissimo. “Sh… _ Focus _ ...”

Slowly, he feels the light stitch him back together, and he wonders where he would have been, without her. Would he be just another assassin, erased by history? No, his art is too great for that.

The hum of the Lamb fades, and he finds himself humming that melody. His wound is completely healed, leaving behind a dark mottled scar.

She sobs as she buries her face in his chest, muffling her cries.

“You were so good, Hui. What a good girl.” He strokes her hair, silken and dark like the fiendfyre underneath her skin. “You did such a good job…”

“I-I’m sorry, Master -” He hears her say in broken breaths, “There’s a scar - you won’t be -”

“Sh…” He chuckles, holding her close, keeping his voice low. “Do you think my art will be affected by such a small thing?”

“N-no…” She whimpers, sniffling, and look up at him. She’s getting tears all over his clothes, but they’re already ruined anyway with blood.

“I will not be less beautiful with this, Hui,” He removes her mask, and wipes her tears away, “Do not be so foolish.”

She seems to cry harder at that, and he holds her close. 

“Now now foolish girl,” He whispers, “Do you want us to get caught?”

They sit together for a long time, him holding her close while she sobbed, until the incompetent guards leave. Unable to find the assassin and his apprentice.


	3. Act III. Lover.

He does not usually have these urges. Above all else, he is a vessel for art, he is a conduit for beauty. He is an artist, and primal urges would only hinder his work.

But right now, he’s had a bit too much wine, and his apprentice looked beautiful. He created this- his masterpiece, his perfect killing machine - and all he wanted to do was possess her.

“Strip.” He commanded, and he sees the hesitance in her eyes, so he says, “I must see my canvas for my masterpiece.”

And she does so, and approaches him. His fingers run over every curve, every inch of exposed skin. The scorched scars are burning to the touch, the fiendfyre running underneath her veins and he thinks that  _ this is what will burn him to ashes.  _

She is shaking. “Are you scared?” He asks.

“No,” She says, and looks at him with dark eyes of hers, set in determination, “I’ve never been scared of you.”

“You’re trembling,” He hums.

“Do you find me beautiful?”

He does not reply, instead, he kisses those blood-stained lips and says, “You are my masterpiece.”

He wakes to ruined bedsheets, his apprentice marked and curled around him. He thinks that this is not so terrible.

* * *

Ash and Cinders, they were called. Hui Jhin. 灰燼.

He scoffs at the name on the wanted poster, tearing it in half. The artist’s work is crude, and imagined them side by side. Hui is delighted by it.

“It’s as if we were meant to be,” she says, “what a wonderful name you’ve given me, Master.”

And as he looks at her smile, he wonders about if this was the beauty he’s been looking for, all along.

He hears the hum of the lamb once more, and he wonders if he’s cheated death too many times. Used her far too often.

“Do not be so foolish, darling,” He takes a piece of her hair into his hands, it’s growing too long, they’d have to cut it soon, “Of course I would give my masterpiece a proper title.”


	4. Act IV. Masterpiece.

Their masks lay shattered to the side. The soldiers slowly advancing, spears and swords pointed at them.

He fires his fourth and last shot in a Noxian’s chest, the man does not even scream as he dies, the spells laced into the bullets seeping into the ground, and rises to burn his compatriots. He immediately reloads.

A foolish one steps forward, activating the Lotus trap, and he watches him with contempt as the clicks accelerate, and the flower blooms, the sharpened steel drawing red, killing the soldier and his two comrades.

“Do not come any closer!” He roars at the imbeciles, before focusing his attention on his apprentice once more.

The wound struggles to stitch itself back together, before bursting open in another spray of black blood, the black flames eating at the edges. The bullet went clean through the liver.  _ Death should never be quick. It should be an opera. _

“ _ Focus _ , Hui.”

This is the fourth time. The fourth time which she blocked a bullet for him.

“M-Master…”

“Sh...Quiet now, focus…” He says, he has to keep calm, for her.

“Y-You’ve never- Y-you’ve never made me - Sixteen years under your apprenticeship and - You still haven’t made me beautiful…”

Has it truly been sixteen years? It feels so much shorter. There is never enough time.

He chuckles, running a hand over feverish skin. The fiendfyre twisting and writhing underneath the scars.

“You already are, my love,” He says, “You’ve always -  _ always _ been my masterpiece…”

There were tears running down her eyes, “Liar - I’m ugly -”

He could feel the Noxians advancing once more, another trap activates, and they are showered in another burst of red.

“Nonsense, darling,” He murmurs, “You...inspire me - You…”

“Will you do it?” She reaches up to him, to Whisper, “Please - I want you to - make me beautiful - and when I die - make me into something -”

He raises Whisper, firing three quick shots in succession, more Noxians fall, and his art blossoms. He reloads.  _ He must get them out of here. _

“Not yet, my love,” He murmurs. He wishes to do it himself, as well. He does not want her to die by some shot from some nameless soldier. “We have more work to do, so much more work -”

“Master - Don’t you hear it? Music -”

_ The hum of the Lamb. _

He finally notices the amount of blood. How the Fiendfyre licks at the edges, refusing to let her wound heal. How -

“No! No! Do not listen -”

“It’s so beautiful, Master -”

“Hui, focus!” He hisses, “Focus on my voice, do not listen to -”

She hums, the soft soprano of her voice echoing the music. And he feels a stab of fear. How strange, he’s never been afraid of death before.

“Hui, no, you must fight it -”

“Please - make me beautiful -”

_ This is what she wanted, what she’s always wanted, what you’ve always wanted. _

Another three shots, and more Noxians. He must save the fourth for her, and he presses the warm barrel to her heart.

“Please -”

“You are my masterpiece,” He promises, voice broken, “And you will be poetry - you will be divine. When they find you - they will cry.”

She smiles, and closes her eyes.

“Thank you, Master...”

The Noxians pounce. So this is how they die, together.

“I love you, Hui.” He Whispers.

The runes of the bullet spreads through her veins and her body, and the magics seeps into the ground, looking for victims. It is his magic, and it will not harm him. A flower blooms, and he thinks it is more beautiful than the others. More soldiers fall, and more advance. He finally focuses on the vile curses the soldiers were shouting.

He is about to rise, reloading, ready to face his death. But he does not hear the hum of the Lamb, instead, all he hears is silence. Something is wrong -

The Fiendfyre that writhed beneath her skin is rising to the surface now, her healing magics no longer restraining them, and they rise and rise and -

“No!” He grips her close to him, and he could feel the heat off of her skin, “No! You will not take her! You will not!”

But the flames do not listen, as they burn and consume and take her away, the flames licking at him. It swallows her, and he watches as her bones turn to ash, and dark hair and dark eyes disappearing into the darkness. Fiendfyre follows the runes left behind by his magics, and he hears screaming. And his world is set aflame, and he thinks he can see the black maw of the Wolf, tearing souls and screams out of the Noxians.

“No! No!” The flames do not harm him. It’s never harmed him, for the flames are a part of her, and she -

“No…” The dark flames eats at the world around them. The forest will be scarred now, cursed forevermore, for Fiendfyre is insatiable and will never be quenched. 

As the world burns around him, all he could think of is the promise he made, sixteen years ago. The work that must be done. But all he holds in his hands are ash and cinders.

Ash and cinders are all that remains of his masterpiece.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this fic! I'm actually quite proud of this, and think this is one of my best work in terms of structure and just being planned out in general. 
> 
> Some additional etymology: The name 燼 is actually Jhin's official League of Legends name in the Chinese servers, it means cinders. An alternate homonym for Hui can be 灰 which means "ash" or 輝 which means "brightness."


End file.
